Well, I stopped brewing beer, and only cook for two...

October 2012

October 08, 2012

I keep seeing comments in the NYTimes and elsewhere essentially saying that it is time to stop blaming the previous administration for the troubles we've been going through as a nation.

I have to seriously disagree with that point of view, and obviously with the type of personality that would allow the degradation of the United States throughout the world and suggest that people who weren't even involved with the decision making at the time somehow hold all the responsibility.

I say it's about time to take a total and true assessment of our nation by connecting the dots through all of the people who set these past 4 years up by their actions and their ideology.

But I'm going to go back even further so one can only see the facts rather than the hyperbole usually fed up to the starving masses. That is the starving for a hero or a great leader, particularly if one can have the feeling that they, in some small way, played a part in the rise of that great leader if only by voting for them.

This isn't going to be a history lesson, for that would take way too much time and way too many footnotes to do the job approriately. But surely we have numerous examples of this hero worship, the leader who could do no wrong, and just how that can be used by the White House for the "good" of the nation and how this "good" was implemented on the sly and often had repercussions throughout the following years.

Let's start with something that sticks with us for not just years, but often a generation, particularly if the nominee is in his early 50s, which is what happened with both Alito and Chief Justice Roberts.

Now both of these nominees testified before Congress via the Judicial Committee, that they would be restricted in what they could do by Stare Decisis, which means essentially to let in place laws to stand unless there is some extenuating circumstance which says it should be changed.

Well, that's the way they testified, but they didn't mean it, and have shown Stare Decisis is not the basis for their votes, but rather something different which leans towards ending a lot of what the Warren court left in place 50 years ago. They and Justices Thomas and Scalia are extremely conservative and not worried about the people in general knowing that they aren't likely to vote for progressive laws, even though Chief Justice Roberts tipped over the conservative apple cart, but also left enough room for the entire Affordable Health Care Act to be overturned if the right case comes before the court.

The court is likely to vote FOR Business and AGAINST the private citizen. But when it's government v citizens, the citizen will be the winner, but when it is state government v citizens, then the state will win. Overall the federal government will win, even against the states, but business will be the big winner, virtually ending any possibility that people, harmed in the act of a corporation doing business, will be the big loser. The court has already set this last outcome up by some of its rulings where the citizen had a proper grievance against business, but lost the ability to even bring the suit to court because it couldn't PROVE the injury BEFORE bringing the case to court. The requirements are too onerous on the citizen and business will make out by being allowed to harm the citizenry without the fear of any monetary remuneration.

This is just one example, in general terms, that the results will be with us for the rest of my children's lifetime and perhaps even theirs.

And it's just one example, as I say. There are tons of examples. Financial regulations applied during the Great Depression that helped reel in the wild financials gyrations which brought down the economy during that period and managed to keep the banks from making the same mistakes until the banks lobbied for the repeal of Glass Steagal, and then the banks went bat-shit crazy and screwed up the economy again. Eight years of Bush43's bad decisions will be with us for years yet to come.

And talking directly about George W. Bush and bad decisions, I can use the gutting of Habeas Corpus because, under the Bush Supreme Court, ultimately eviscerated the power that Habeas Corpus gave the people over the government. They did so by demanding that Habeas Corpus was supposed to be granted to all of enemy combatants, but because they were in Gitmo with minimal legal power to aid in their defense, they were simply given their day in court, and thrown back into Gitmo. There are people in Gitmo known to be innocent of any charges (if they were charged at all), and yet we cannot figure out how to release them back into the world, because we've probably already created another terrorist.

What a piss poor excuse for not releasing them. By law they should be released, so release them but keep and eye on them. If they decide to aid terrorist organizations, then throw them back in Gitmo WITH charges and allow them to fight for themselves in court using all the right laws.

Instead, we're going to be breaking our own laws every day we don't release these prisoners the courts have said we had to release. Americans simply sit back and allow it, which means that George W. Bush's decision has degraded America's place in the world and it may take yet another generation before we can rebuild the trust we used to have, even with our enemies.

If America has become weaker in the world today, it is due to the continued abuse of the rule of law America so steadily held fast upon. Without the rule of law, there is no basis for making any claims against other countries who might need a little moral guidance. Instead, George W. Bush made it clear that he had intentions of using the military might of America in order to create a world that the Neo-Cons demanded. And if one believes that the Neo-Cons have been defeated and thrown to the side of the road, well, a lot of those Neo-Cons are now working on the Romney campaign and trying to secure some political stronghold from which to continue their policies which brought us a war of choice in Iraq, which we didn't win. We couldn't win because we were fighting a war with a country that should have been a great partner with our efforts in the Middle East.

Instead, we killed a hundred thousand Iraqi, we created millions of Iraqi refuges, stole billions in war profiteering, and in the end showed the entire world, allies and enemies alike, that America can be defeated.

This is obvious by the response the Taliban have come up with in Afghanistan. At the absolute best, we have only given the Taliban a legal seat at the table of government. When it all settles down and the dust clears, the Taliban will be as strong as before and have the legal standing of a political party.

Now regardless of how one wants to spin it, such as suggesting that it is all Obama's fault, one has to realize that every step along the way has been to try to manipulate us out of this nasty truth of our failure and the legitimate rise of the Taliban. This is the result of the Neo-Cons programs which have failed and directly attributable to the Bush administration and it's reliance on the Neo-Cons.

The financial problem we find ourselves in right now also shows the marks of being a Bush Administration's efforts, and the manipulations of which the Neo-Cons played a large part.

Now I'm taking great strides in trying to maintain some glimmer of a difference between the Bush Administration and the Neo-Cons, which were not the only people in the Bush Administration. But their power started at the vice-presidential level, with Dick Cheney running a virtual hidden government and where decisions made at that level were automatically approved by President Bush because he didn't have the mental capacity to see how much he was being used.

The Neo-Cons weren't then nor now an elected group of people doing the work of the people. They were a group of people who insinuated themselves into positions of power, some of whom still reside within the executive branch, and continuing to build even more support for implementing their own ideals when they can get yet another Republican President. Unfortunately Mitt Romney appears to be the perfect candidate for these people, as he seems to be one that will allow others to appoint themselves responsible for items on an agenda which Mitt does not want to contend.

Sorry, but I simply do not believe that Mr. Romney has enough strength of character to not be swayed by internal political pressures, nor do I believe that he's really a follow-up type of guy. I could be wrong on both but the question is whether we want to find out if Mitt Romney is another George W. Bush or not. We'll be able to delve into that problem after Romney's Foreign Policy speech at VMI today. My guess is that once he actually makes these pronouncements on foreign policy all at once, we'll find Neo-Con fingerprints all over it.

Now don't get me wrong, and I admit I will be using George W. Bush as an example in a lot of this article because there is so much that is still outstanding and never been addressed, much less resolved with him, but believe me, we're not talking about a new Republican guard that might come into power. We're talking about a man who can be manipulated without much in the way of direct overt power being exerted and still coming up with the same results.

And what results, you ask, might those be. Well, let's take a look at today's Republican Senators who have used the filibuster for a record one hundred times in a single election cycle, most of those denying President Obama's choices for running major parts of the executive branch, and only allowing votes for the Bush remnants still within the government. The acting director of the AFT, who instituted Fast and Furious, and then oversaw it well into Obama's first term because the President couldn't get anyone's nomination through the acceptance process. So a Bush program, giving weapons to the bad guys to follow back to the leaders, supposedly like following cookie crumbs left behind like Hansel and Gretel, and like Hansel and Gretel, the entire thing backfired just when it would be use by Darrell Issa against President Obama instead of pointing the finger at the real culprit, George W. Bush.

Now while this isn't a generational influence thing, the above was only an example of how the Republicans can keep the President from getting his own players into positions where they can do the work the President assigns to them. The same can be said for the Acting Director of the DEA, who, while being appointed by George W. Bush, was the only person the Republicans would approve to run the DEA, so another example of how the political parties actually interfere with the operations of a sitting President, and operating against the expressed desire of a sitting President.

All of this is within the law, although I don't recall the Democrats actually trying to kill the ability of any Republican President to use the power he is granted by the Constitution, but it has been very effective against Barack Obama, so you can expect it to be a part of the game plan for the next 50 years unless the Senate changes the rules of the Senate and fixes the Filibuster.

Any of these "little" things, all above the legal line, have lasting effects for years, and sometimes through Presidential successions, for one thing you can believe is if the Republicans can throw enough monkey wrenches into the mix to cause Democrats problems, they will do so and have already figured out how to use it to their advantage.

October 03, 2012

Mitt Romney, but not because his "plans" are better than the President's, but rather because he had the audacity to step on the toes of Jim Lehrer and thereby of President Obama also.

OK, so stepping on the toes of an opponent no matter what the ring is exactly what one should do. But the rules on the floor aren't what most people expect. Ultimately Romney looked like an oaf, willing to continue to speak even if what he said didn't make any sense.

And a lot of it didn't make any sense. I still don't know what Mitt Romney plans to do if he gets elected. What I heard tonight was not what I've heard Mr. Romney say for the past year. In fact it seemed as if Mitt was thumbing a ride on what President Obama said, often trying to say that his plan was "much better than that" when we still hadn't heard word one of what his plan actually includes. But he somewhat looks good being a "but I'll go you one better", which, of course, he did not do.

For every attack Mr. Romney made against the President, Mr. Obama came back with irrefutable facts and figures, all of which are immediately available on www.whitehouse.gov.

Still, after being beat about the head and shoulders with the fact that Mr. Romney could only talk about a plan when he had still presented nothing of facts and figures of his own, he continued with new gusto to site his plans without saying what his plans included.

And this, my friends, is what the entire debate consisted of.

Now a lot of people are going to say that Mitt was combative, incorrectly assuming that this suggested that he was "Presidential".

Unless Presidents lie every time they open their mouths, Mitt did not seem Presidential to me, he seemed afraid that he wasn't Presidential at all.

Mitt, if he wanted to appear Presidential, should have had all of his ducks in a row, facts and figures to which he could use to support his ideas, and, in fact, he could have had some concrete ideas that didn't change depending upon whom he was talking to. Well, this time he was talking to the nation, and he was failing to come up with anything that the American people could embrace as something they felt comfortable about, something they could lay claim to well enough to get onboard the Romney Wagon as happy travellers.

I think we're still talking about an "anybody but Obama" strategy, hoping that Mr. Obama incapable in explaining his record, which, btw, he created over 4 hard years of governing. And that's one of the reasons that Obama has the answers, facts and figures. He created the answers, facts and figures.

Mitt Romney has been running for President for years, and yet somehow he still doesn't have a viable enough plan to do the job the way he sees it to actually lay it out in black and white for the American people.

Mr. Romney also spent most of the night walking back virtually every statement he had made in the past 20+ years of running for office. If Senator John Kerry was a flip-flopper, then one has to wonder what word will be invented for the man who made just about every statement he's ever uttered turn to dust in the air.

One has to question, in their hearts, if this man, Mitt Romney, is either too politically stupid to exist in this environment, or simply a pathological liar. Now for those of you that do not know, a pathological liar is a person who lies even if there is no cause to lie whatsoever.

Which ever way it works out as far as the electorate is concerned, everyone should be concerned that the man, Mitt Romney, could stand on the stage in front of 80 million Americans and essentially pull the wool over their eyes if they thought they'd get an idea of what Mitt Romney's Plans for America are, because he presented not one iota of information for you or I to make any assessments.

The best we can say is that we know Mitt Romney can somehow not shut up even when he actually has nothing to say. In fact, the thing that scares me is the possibility of people assuming that one without plans, without information, facts and figures, and timelines this suggests he is of Presidential caliber.

At the best my analysis has to be that this was a simple clusterfuck. The President looked somewhat off balance as he patiently waited for Mitt to shut the fuck up, and Mitt was more and more willing to talk as he saw the President being more of the gentleman than he should have been.